The Duke University Arthritis Center has brought together both clinicians and basic scientists into a common structure to achieve a singular goal--that of improving the health and welfare of patients with immune-mediated diseases in North Carolina and surrounding states. The structure of DUAC allows new insights gained by basic immunologic research to be rapidly applied to clinical rheumatologic diseases by channelling basic information to the clinical investigative unit in DUAC. Here new treatment strategies are developed and tested and made available to patients when they are judged to be both safe and efficacious. In the DUAC comprehensive clinics, the best treatments available to patients with rheumatologic diseases are provided in a setting designed to be user-friendly to patients and comprehensive in services offered.